The most bizarre political ads

A monkey, some hungry alligators, a bullet-ridden television set and the Ebola virus. These are the stars of some of the season’s political ads, grabbing eyeballs and raising eyebrows all while trying to make a broader point.

“The goal is to get attention,” said veteran GOP ad-maker Fred Davis, whose own famous spots include the demon sheep ad for Carly Fiorina. “It’s to take a dollar and stretch it to $2 or $3 because people talk about it.”

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The danger with some of the ads is that the candidate can come across as ridiculous or as having poor taste. But the other alternative — boring ads that people forget — could end up being a waste of resources.

With the post-Labor Day sprint looming, expect to see more such unusual spots. In the meantime, here are some notable ones so far:

Shooting a TV

In an ad released Tuesday, GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan decries the millions of dollars in negative advertising “flooding into Alaska paid for by Washington special interests” and says “pretty soon you’re going to want to do this to your TV.”

Sullivan, in a field of grass with snow-peaked mountains in the background, then pulls out a gun and fires two shots at a television, shattering its screen. The plaid-shirt-wearing politician goes on to criticize his opponent, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, for not joining an “Alaska Agreement” to stem the outside money.

The ad could help rile up the Republican base for Sullivan in a state where guns and hunting are favorite pastimes. It also could counter at least some of the effects of the several million dollars that Democratic group Put Alaska First (funded mostly by Senate Majority PAC) has spent against him.

The dancing insurance execs

Democratic House candidate Mike Obermueller of Minnesota put out an ad in mid-May that showed people playing insurance executives celebrating the position on Obamacare taken by his opponent, GOP Rep. John Kline. The “executives” dance wildly to pop music, party with champagne bottles and throw money up into the air in a corporate meeting room.

“To insurance executives, John Kline is music to their ears because if Congress repeals Obamacare, insurance companies will go back to charging whatever they want,” the narrator says. The ad later shows Obermueller saying: “I’ll never get played by the insurance industry.”

The ad is somewhat unusual in the sense that it’s essentially a defense of the the president’s health care law, which Republicans have repeatedly blasted in races nationwide. But Obermueller is also running in a swing district, and it could help him turn out the Democratic base there. He told POLITICO that “Republicans have had the microphone on this issue for far too long” and Democrats have to stand up for Obamacare.

The alligators analogy

Louisiana GOP Senate candidate Rob Maness released an ad in May that’s full of alligators — hungry, biting ones that apparently want to eat up your tax dollars.

“One moment of weakness and the alligators can eat you alive,” Maness says amid shots of alligators snapping their jaws. The candidate promises he’ll stand up to Washington “and alligators” as he proceeds to wrap up one of the reptile’s jaws.

The ad’s point about government spending is red meat for the conservative grass roots, but Maness’ team says it also managed to raise his profile. Spokesman Jon Meadows says people now come up to the candidate and say, “Hey! You’re the gator guy!” The campaign also “saw an increase in small $50-and-under donations after the ad,” Meadows said.

An injection of Ebola

Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas launched an ad Tuesday charging that his GOP opponent, Tom Cotton, “voted against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola” because he has sided with cutting funding from medical disaster and emergency programs.

Ebola hasn’t hit the U.S., and, as of now, Arkansas residents don’t have much to fear from the disease, but the ad is nonetheless an attention-grabber in a key Senate race and suggests that Cotton doesn’t think about the consequences of his votes.

Asked whether the ad was a bit hyperbolic, Pryor’s campaign insisted it was about a very serious issue. It also pointed to an ad Cotton ran last year that used geese throughout most of the commercial and one the Club for Growth ran on Cotton’s behalf that ended with a parrot pooping on the front page of The New York Times.

Monkey on the shoulder

The National Republican Congressional Committee’s ad against Democratic Rep. John Barrow of Georgia uses a monkey to drive home its point.

A female narrator (with the monkey on her shoulder) says that almost $1 million in taxpayer money had been “spent studying how monkeys respond to unfairness and how they act while on cocaine. Think about that — that’s how outrageous the spending in Washington has gotten.”

The woman then says Barrow is helping bankrupt the country by voting much of the time with President Barack Obama on spending bills.

The ad, released earlier this week, appeared clearly aimed at fiscal conservatives in Georgia.

The jihadist killer of James Foley

In the department of “Are you sure about this?” a minute-long Web video by GOP Senate candidate Allen Weh of New Mexico includes a brief shot of the masked killer of American journalist James Foley holding a knife.

The Monday spot also shows lots of chaos abroad, such as images of militants brandishing guns and a fireball of an explosion, contrasted against shots of the president golfing, dancing in the White House and strolling on his vacations.

The video seems to attack Obama more harshly than Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, who it also shows as saying that “this diplomatic path that we’re on is a good one.” It could also backfire because it appears to score political points off the brutal killing of an American.

Regardless, it certainly got lots of attention from the national media, who had previously shown little interest in Weh’s campaign.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article gave the wrong date for the Georgia monkey ad.